An online conference session is defined to be a communication session in which two or more parties communicate electronically. If a conference session is private, participation is restricted, typically using encryption keys (sometimes herein called secret keys) to encrypt the conference session. If a conference session is not private, participation is not restricted. A private conference session always requires participants registration and authentication, whereas a public conference may require either participants' registration, or both participant' registration and authentication. Registration is the procedure by which a participant indicates his/her intention to participate in a conference session and receives in return a registration certificate. For private conferences, registration is also the process by which a participant obtains the secret key required to decode the contents of the conference session. Authentication is the procedure by which a participant's identity is validated.
For example, a scientific conference may be public in nature, but require participants registration for billing purposes. Similarly, it may require authentication for providing membership discounts.
A multi-party communications system allows two or more parties to send and receive data and to communicate accordingly. A conferencing system, is a multi-party communications system that provides real time communications.
An online conferencing system will typically allow several conference sessions to take place simultaneously. Every conference session is assumed to be initiated by a particular user, namely the session holder, and it is up to the session holder to specify the conference type, and to handle participants registration and key distribution accordingly. With regard to participants registration and key distribution, the session can follow either a centralized or distributed approach. In a centralized approach, the session holder handles everything himself, whereas in a distributed approach the session holder nominates agents to assist him. The present invention utilizes a distributed approach.
It is a goal of the present invention to enable a session holder to enlist the services of other parties to facilitate the registration and distribution of secret keys to conference session participants.
It is a further goal of the present invention to provide a mechanism so that registration certificates given to conference session participants can be validated by any user of the system, including parties not participating in the conference session.
It is a further goal of the present invention to provide a mechanism that enables any user of the system to determine if a particular participant has registered for a conference session, who provided that participant with a registration certificate, and provided him with the session key in a private conference session.
It is a further goal of the present invention to enable conference session participants to be able to request specified certification parties, such as universities, to convert their registration certificates into attendance certificates, and for such certification parties to be able to validate the registration certificates so as to verify that the requesting party actually participated in the conference session for which an attendance certificate has been requested.